I just wanted to give a public congratulations to my friend Tom Spina and all his cohorts over at Tom Spina Designs for their outstanding work on the new Star Wars themed commercial produced for the Superbowl this month. The ad, “The Dog Strikes Back: 2012 Volkswagen Game Day Commercial” features a cut to a stunning recreation of the A New Hope Mos Eisley Cantina, with creature masks, prosthetics, and some costumes made by the Tom Spina Designs team (10 aliens in total). Incredible.

In the commercial, with the cantina scene most of the screen time is the dialogue between BoShek and Dr. Evazan, with Ponda Baba (AKA “Walrus Man”) nearby, noticeably missing one of his arms following his encounter with Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Darth Vader interrupting their conversation and debate as to whether last year’s “Darth Vader kid” commercial was better (see embedded 2011 video further below).

I’ve known Tom for about 10 years now, and he is a huge Star Wars fan, and of all the movies, and all the scenes, the Cantina scene in the original film has always been his favorite. So it is awesome to see him have the opportunity to take a lead and critical role in a modern day recreation of it.

I know from talking with Tom that he will in the coming days and weeks be publishing a lot of photos and information about their work on this commercial over at his official site, www.tomspinadesigns.com, but wanted to help spread the word about the commercial and his contributions to it. Below is the commercial directed by Lance Acord:

Tom is well known in the industry for his incredible work in saving and restoring original props and costumes and building custom displays and other exciting projects, but he also does amazing original work and I am just so happy to have been able to see his career exploded over the past few years, and can’t wait to see what kinds of opportunities open to him as a result of the worldwide exposure of this great commercial.

How cool to see him so accurately recreate that same creature for a new scene within the Mos Eisley Cantina today.

Again, huge congrats to Tom and his team at Tom Spina Designs!

Jason DeBord

Update 1: 2/2/12

Tom put up a page on his Tom Spina Designs website this morning with more information about their work on the Volkswagen commercial, including some studio photos of the masks and other pieces that they created for the shoot:

Also, credits for the full team at TSD that played a part in bringing the cantina creatures to life:

Tom Spina

Mike Thomas

Brian Lewis

Patrick Louie

Robb DeNicola

Richard Riley

Rich Krusell

Mike Morello

Melissa Dooley

Theresa Spina

Update 2: 2/2/12

Another ‘Making of’ / ‘Behind the Scenes’ video published by Volkswagen tonight: